just a bit of an update

This week has been a busy one from the job perspective. On Tuesday I headed out to a job interview at a school for troubled youth located outside Bonners Ferry ID. I should hear back from them some time next week. On Wednesday I had several interviews for retail stores in the Spokane area, in case I have more trouble finding a social work job, then today (Thursday) I had a phone interview for a church job that could be in spokane, Fresno CA, Chicago IL or New York City NY. I should here back from a few other jobs this week, and we will let people know if we decide to pack up and move, but there is no news yet. Whitney is weighing in the 20th percentile which is a sizable improvement for her and we are excited. We'll keep you all posted on what we end up doing.

Trips around the world (outside of Cheney)

Will and I have never been camping since we have been married. I am not sure what has held us back; I think we mostly just didn't have all the things that we needed. But when we heard that our ward was having a camping trip at a church campsite, we really wanted to go. And then our good friends said we could camp with them in their huge tent. Will was only a little sad because he wanted to try out our tent for the first time, but I thought it was fun to be so close to some buddies. Our friends also have a little girl, so we knew that they wouldn't mind if Whitney made a little noise in the night. Anyway, we had a lot of fun. Lots of people from the ward showed up.



Here is our amazing campfire where we cooked hotdogs for dinner and, of course, had s'mores. I had forgotten just how good a perfect s'more is, with the marshmallow roasted to golden perfection. Or burnt black like one of mine turned out to be, but still good.



Whitney turned out to be a good little camper. Unfortunately, it was very cold. So we were all dressed up. Whitney was wearing so many layers that you can barely see her face. But that really is Whitney; I'm not just holding some random baby.



We got home and Whitney got a bath. She use to hate bathtime and now she just dislikes bathtime, so I think we are making progress. But she is all cute and clean in this picture and smelling like her lavender baby shampoo. We will have to keep her naked after bath pictures to use for her future dates, isn't that what parents do to embarrass their children?

We also took a trip to Cour-de-Lane, Idaho on a Saturday. The lake is absolutely beautiful there and the water wasn't freezing. So it turned out to be lots of fun to hang out for a couple of hours. We did a little window shopping and got an ice cream. But here we are at the lake.





Will gets a turn with Whitney in the water. And we took a couple of videos and Whitney is happy.



It was surprising that Whitney didn't mind having her feet dipped into the water. She even sort of liked it. But she had to have an outfit change afterward because she was soaking wet.

We walked around town and saw a big moose statue right there on the sidewalk. So we had to get a picture of Whitney on it; although I am not sure we were technically suppose to touch it. Oh well. Whitney is too light to make much of a difference.



And finally we went inside an awesome toy store that sold long ago classic toys and some really funny objects. We were almost tempted here to do some real shopping, versus just looking, but we stopped ourselves. One book caught our eye though. This one was just so funny. We might have to go back and get it one of these days.



Anyway, those are our trips lately. I know they might only sound sort of exciting to some of you adventurers out there, but they were pretty exciting for us homebodies in Cheney. Bye.

New Clothes

Whitney has turned six months old, so we decided to get out the 6-9 month outfits that we have been storing in our closet. And we were very lucky and received even more clothes from Courtney's aunt and uncle in Utah. Thank you Lissie and Gary. So we have been very blessed. I thought I would post some pictures and a video of Whitney modeling her new outfits.



And we have a very sweet baby; if you don't believe me, just look at her shirt. Kind of makes you want a juicy piece of watermelon, doesn't it?



Here we have an almost smiling Whitney. What I wouldn't do to keep her smiling and still while taking pictures. But then you wouldn't get the essence of her personality. Whitney has begun the hitting stage. Her arm just swings wildly and the pictures all turn out blurry. Oh well.



I got a really cute outfit from my mom. She said that she bought it in Arizona when she was buying clothes for my younger sister, Erin, as a baby. I have been eagerly waiting for Whitney to be able to fit into it and now she does.



We got a lot of compliments on this dress last Sunday at church. Whitney is more fascinated by the shoes, but that's okay.



Whitney is getting so big. Lately, we have been giving her drinks of water in one of our cups because she sees us drinking and starts demanding some for herself. Besides getting her clothes a little wet each time, I think Whitney is starting to get the hang of it. She will help hold the cup and put it up to her mouth. It is quite cute. We tried giving her a little juice the other day and she was really surprised that it wasn't water and wasn't too happy about that.



Who does the binky belong to?



That's all folks. We will put up more pictures later of our first camping trip and trip to Cour-de-Lane.

Actual Reunion

I know it has been a little while since we have posted the pre-reunion pictures, but we have been a little busy with our 3-year anniversary and a ward campout. Anyway, here are some pictures from the actual reunion in Utah.



We had a big family dinner at Golden Corral that was super yummy. My Uncle David loved holding baby Whitney and talking to her.



And Whitney was happy to be held by everyone. The boys did their good deed of the day after the dinner when the truck in front of us started bumping around and we noticed the lady's tire was broken.



Here the boys are being manly and tough. With all the help the lady received, the men were able to just pick up the back of the truck to put the jack underneath. That is quite the muscle power.



The reunion in the park the next day was a lot of fun. Most of the kids tried to walk the tightrope, but it was too hard. I don't know how acrobats can do it and make it look so easy.



There was an intense watergun fight. We weren't part of it since I had to hold Whitney and she doesn't like getting wet. But the boys looked like they had fun.



This is one of my favorite pictures. I wish Whitney had been a little happier for our 4 generations of women picture, but it wasn't to be. It was really cool to have the four generations there in one place. Whitney was able to meet all of her living great-grandparents on this trip, so that was neat.



Courtney's little brother, Conner, was baptized right after the reunion. Now all of the Anderson children have been baptized. All in all, the reunion was great. I am glad that we were able to go. We will have to put up some more pictures soon.

Pre-reunion (part 2)

So after Whitney had safely explored the Bean Museum at BYU and seemed to be okay with the stuffed animals, we decided to let her see some real animals at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake. I know we have put pictures of animals on here before, but they are too cute to pass up. We went to the zoo and the This is the Place Monument on Friday.



Here Will and Whitney are right at the beginning of the zoo when everyone is all fresh and happy. Whitney really enjoys being in her little carrier. Here comes a couple pictures of the animals.



I only slightly begrudged the rhino that water; it was hot. But water mixed in mud on the ground is not what I call refreshing.



Whitney liked the cute penguins. Okay, I liked the cute penguins and Whitney just tolerated looking at them, but oh well.



I don't know what it is about giraffes, but they are so fun to watch. Here my family watches one of them eating. What would you do with such a long neck? Whitney kind of fell asleep during the middle of our zoo adventure, but she woke up pretty quickly and didn't miss too much of the animals.



You cannot leave the Hogle Zoo without seeing the big monkeys. The gorilla mostly just stood around, but the chimpanzees and the other monkeys were fun to watch swinging.



And my favorite was the little baby elephant. We got there right on time for the elephant show. A zoo keeper was having the elephants do tricks for pieces of bread and the baby elephant kept trying to steal the bread from the bag with his trunk. It was adorable. The baby elephant looks so small compared to its mom, but it is actually 900 pounds. Crazy.



Here we are standing in front of a handcart at the This is the Place Monument. A couple of years ago my family tried pulling a handcart around for just a couple of miles and it is tiring work, so I really appreciate the pioneers and all the hard work and faith they put into crossing the plains.



It was impossible to get a picture of the whole monument, since it is too big. But here we are in front of the monument. What a great day it was.